Monday, November 21, 2016

In September 2015 I started
the Tucson LDS Same-Gender Attraction group. No one uses the group’s official
name and we all just call it Gay Night. Our Facebook group has 19 members and 8
to 12 people typically come to one of our meetings. Two of the members are in
mixed-orientation marriages and everyone else is single. Both men and women
attend the group and we have people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual,
pansexual, and asexual. Not everyone is currently active in church, but most of
the group members are. Our monthly meetings are the highlight of my month.
These people have become my family and are some of my closest friends. Here’s
the story of how the group got started.

On 6 December 2013 I received
a mass email titled, “BYU Studies Personal Essays & Poetry Contest.” As I
read through the email I suddenly had this huge desire to write an essay about
coming out while at BYU. At the time only some of my friends and family even
knew I was gay, but the prompting was clear so I took a few hours over
Christmas break and wrote the essay. It was promptly rejected by BYU Studies shortly
after I submitted it. I was deeply disappointed, but during 2014 I came out to
more people than I ever had before and in conjunction with coming out to them I
also gave them a copy of the essay I wrote. It ended up being a fantastic tool
and I thought, “Oh, this is why I felt prompted to write it.”

A year later I was listening
to a podcast about the importance of telling stories and I once again felt
inspired to share the essay I’d written, but this time on my blog. I searched
my feelings for a few days, talked to all the people mentioned in the essay to
get their approval to share it, and a week later I posted it on my blog. I was
totally unprepared for the flood of responses I would receive. I started
getting emails from gay Mormons in places as far away as Italy and Tasmania who
felt lonely, sad and isolated. My heart hurt for these people who felt they had
no one they could reach out to except for this stranger on the internet. I
responded to all the emails I received, but that was about all I could do for
them.

It suddenly dawned on me that
there were probably gay Mormons here in Tucson that were also struggling and
while I couldn’t do much to help the people who lived far from me, I could for
sure help the people in my city. I wanted to form a group patterned after the
Genesis Group. If you haven’t heard of the Genesis Group, you can read it's history here. Basically, in the early 70s church leaders took notice of all the
Black members of the church who were leaving. The Genesis Group was a monthly
fireside-like meeting where they could strengthen their faith in Christ
together and build a community of people with similar life experiences and
struggles. It was started by three apostles and was under the direction of the
priesthood. I wanted to do the same thing, but for LGBT Mormons in my area.

In March 2015 I emailed my
stake president about forming a stake sponsored support group. He and I didn’t
really know each other at the time, but he set up a time to meet with me.
During that initial meeting we talked about already established support groups
like Affirmation and North Star and the resources currently available in Tucson
(there were none). He was interested in starting a support group, but was cautious.
He wanted to do some research before we settled on anything which made good
sense. Then he shocked me by extending a calling to serve in the stake Sunday
School presidency in that same meeting. As I wrote about the experience in my
journal that night I couldn’t hold back the tears. Years of shame about being
gay made me feel like I would be rejected by church members if they knew I was
gay. And now my stake president was well aware of my orientation and he had
called me to a stake calling anyway AND he wanted to reach out to gay Mormons in
our stake. I felt so loved and he made me feel like I belonged.

Over the next few months we
met a few times to discuss forming a group. The stake president asked a high
councilor to work with me and the two of us collaborated to write a group
charter. Our two goals as a group would be to build our faith in Christ
together and form a community of people with similar circumstances. The group
would be both LDS affirming and LGTB affirming and it would be open to people
who weren’t currently active in the church. We would meet once a month for a gospel lesson and
then have some kind of social activity during the month as well. The stake
president and high councilor chose to name the group the Tucson LDS Same-Gender
Attraction group. I didn’t love the name, but I was okay with it. I created a
secret Facebook group with that name for announcements.

I found this decades old slip of papertucked into my grandma's old Bible.She's been gone for 21 years, but shestill encourages me.

On the first Tuesday in
September 2015 we had our first meeting of the Tucson LDS SGA at a local church
building. I was super-nervous, but it went well. Only three of us from the LGBT
community were there so we started out small (technically, we had one G and two
B’s). When I got home that night I had a Facebook message from a man that I
knew from the LDS Institute, but didn’t know well. He told me that he had gone
to the church parking lot for the meeting, but didn’t have the courage to go
inside. I invited him over to my house to chat and the next night this near
stranger told me his whole life story for two hours. He kept apologizing for
talking so much. I told him not to worrying and to keep going. Before talking
to me he had only come out to two bishops and this was his first time talking
to someone who could really relate to his experiences as a gay Mormon. He
called me the next day to thank me for talking with him for so long and said
how helpful it had been. Someone in Tucson had needed a gay Mormon friend and I
was thrilled to fill that role.

A
few days after our first group meeting the stake president learned that stakes
are not allowed to sponsor support groups for LGBT members so we were no longer
allowed to meet at a church. The high councilor offered to let us meet at his
house once a month and the stake president encouraged us to continue even
though he wouldn’t be officially involved. And that’s what we’ve been doing
since then. Every month either I or another group member chooses a talk that we
all read (well, are supposed to read)
beforehand and we discuss it as a group and how it relates to us. Our most
recent meeting was on November 3rd and I wrote the following in my
journal that night (please excuse all the cheesiness): “My heart is so full
tonight… As we talked after and hung out I just wanted to cry. We are a family
and I’m so honored for the role I played in the creation of this family. I’m
just so grateful that we are all able to be together at this time and place.
This is God’s work and it brings me so much joy.”

Wow, that was terribly
cheesy, but it’s true. Being together strengthens us and builds us up. As one
member recently told me, just talking to other people like her reduced the
anxiety and depression she was feeling. We have needed and will continue to
need each other.

Ally Night

The scriptures define Zion as
a people that is “of one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18). I don’t think this
means that we all think and feel the same the things, but that we understand
one another and what is in each other’s hearts. This is the purpose of Ally
Night, to build Zion through understanding. Last November my buddy Paul was troubled
by the church’s new policy regarding members in same-sex marriages and their
children. He realized that this policy was either going to push him further
into the closet or force him out. He decided to come out.

Paul and I in my living room

Paul decided that the best
way to affect change was to tell his story. So he asked if he could have some
friends come over to my house so he could share his story with them. Eight
people came over to my house on 9 November 2015 (just four days after the
policy was leaked) to hear Paul’s story. He was open, authentic, and very
personal. When he was done he let people ask him questions and then a
wonderfully beautiful conversation emerged. The Spirit in the room was strong
and I was moved by the level of compassion that Paul’s friends had. They really
wanted to love and support him. It went so well that Paul invited a different
group of people over ten days later. Then we decided that we should both talk
and we started calling the meetings Ally Night because it was a way for us to
build allies by giving them access to our hearts.

We’ve held dozens of Ally
Nights since them, always in someone’s home. We start them out by having two
gay Mormons briefly tell their stories and then we let people ask questions.
That typically lasts about an hour. Then we end with introductions. Everyone in
the room says their name and comments on one takeaway from the night. This is
usually the most touching part of the evening. We also begin and end the meeting with a prayer. We’ve had six different
presenters so far who are all single and either gay or bi. Soon we’ll be having
an asexual person tell their story as well as a lesbian in a mixed orientation
marriage. It’s been ridiculously rewarding to watch my friends grow in
confidence and share their stories.

We’ve had loads of support
for Ally Night. My stake presidency and bishop have attended in the past.
Another presenter’s stake president and bishop have come as well. One leader
sent me a note following Ally Night that said in part, "You and Paul are doing good work...don't stop." One
of the Young Single Adult wards in Tucson has been especially welcoming
(actually, nearly half of the members of the support group come from this one
ward). Each of the members of this bishopric have hosted an Ally Night in their
home. These men and their wives are my heroes.

We’ve had very positive
experiences result from Ally Night. On three separate occasions someone told me
that the day after attending Ally Night someone they knew came out to them and
because they had come to the meeting the night before they knew how to respond.
Often people stay long after the meeting to ask further questions and just to get
to know one another better. It has deepened friendships and created many more.

There are a lot of positive
stories that I could tell about Ally Night, but I’ll just share one. Both I and
another Ally Night presenter invited a woman we know from the Institute to
attend Ally Night. She said she was busy and couldn’t come. I invited her to
the next Ally Night and she again said she was busy. Since we do Ally Night
frequently and on different nights I asked, “Well, when are you free? We can
plan it around your schedule.” She replied, “I’m pretty busy most nights,”
which I took to mean, “Allow me to politely tell you that I’m not interested in
attending.” It turns out she did what to come because she came to an Ally Night
not long after that. At the end of the meeting as everyone was sharing their
takeaways she thanked me and the other presenter and said that everyone just
wants to be understood. She had previously told me that she has depression which
is often misunderstood (like when people tell her to just be choose to be
happy).

A few weeks after that I ran
into her at the Institute. She told me that she had just been in Utah visiting
some friends. Some of her friends had said that people choose to be gay. She
took a deep breath and said to herself, “Okay, time to be an ally.” Then she
shared the insight she had had at Ally Night with her friends and helped them
understand what she had learned. Just like it wouldn’t be right to tell a
person with depression to just choose to be happy, it wouldn’t be right to tell
a gay man to just choose to marry a woman. My heart swelled with gratitude for
this friend of mine who had not only taken the time to learn about our
experiences, but had stood up for us and corrected misinformation. She’s my
hero, too.

We had an Ally Night at a bishop’s
house this past Sunday. One of the guys from Gay Night shared his story for the
very first time. As we went around the room sharing our takeaways from the
night, a woman who I hadn’t meant before said, “I want to thank you two for
being so open and honest tonight. I want you to know that I am going to be an
LGBT ally and I will support you whether you stay in the church or leave. I
know many of you don’t have families in town and I will be your Tucson mom if
you need one. Call me anytime, day or night, and I will be there for you. The doors to my home are always open to you and you
are part of my family now.” After the meeting she gave us both big hugs and
thanked us for being so brave and reiterated that she would be there for us. I
wish every gay Mormon could feel the love and support we have in Tucson. I wish
they could hear the message that I consistently hear from straight Mormons at
Ally Night. “We love you. We claim you. You are one of us. You belong in this
church.” We don’t go into Ally Night expecting these kinds of compassionate
responses, but they are simply the natural reaction to understanding our
stories.

Ally Night is a small,
grassroots initiative started by my buddy Paul, but it’s affecting a lot of
people and it’s making Tucson a much more welcoming place for LGBT Mormons. We’ve
only just begun and we still have a long way to go, but with courageous people
like Paul in the church things are only going to get better.

I’d just like to end this
really long post with a primary song that exemplifies the pioneering work we’re
doing here in Tucson.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Last month three friends and I stayed at an Airbnb in
Anaheim while spending two days at Disneyland. Our hostess Leena was super
nice. She and I chatted a few times about her kids, seeing God’s miracles in
her life, and how great it is to live in southern California. The day we left
and I packed up my things I had a nagging feeling that I was forgetting
something, but I looked under the beds and in the bathroom and there didn’t
seem to be anything that I hadn’t packed. It wasn’t until I was back in my
house in Arizona that I realized I had left all my dirty clothes in a drawer in
California. At first I was super bummed that I had left some of my favorite clothes
in another state (I mean you, purple shirt). But I had driven through the night
and had not yet slept at all so I crawled into bed figuring I’d address the
problem in a few hours.

I texted Leena that afternoon and explained the situation.
She was totally understanding and offered to mail my clothes to me and I
offered to send her some money for her trouble. All was right with the world.
And then a few hours later I got a text from her that she had meant to send to
her mom. It read: “So the last bnb guest left a bunch of clothes on accident
and asked if I’d mail them. Of course I will but they were dirty so I brought
them home to wash the first and all the undies were like really long and the
white shirts slightly off. Then I remembered they were a group of four MORMONS.
I washed the special undies in my washing machine.”

She immediately realized that she had accidently sent the
text to me and I soon received two texts that said, “Oh God, humiliation,”
and “Forgive me.”

I burst into laughter, of course, but knowing that she was
probably feeling mortified I texted her saying not to worry, that I’ve sent the
wrong text to people loads of times, and that she needn’t feel embarrassed. I
then thought it might be nice to explain why my undies are so weird so I sent her
this video from the church with a message that said, “Here’s a quick video on
what the clothes mean to us Mormons.”

Here’s the rest of our conversation.

I could not stop laughing and all the hilarity made me feel
like this near stranger who had just told her mom about my underwear was a good
friend. A few days later I received a package in the mail with all my clothes
nicely folded with a note that said, “I’m a mom first so these have been
through the wash.” Leaving my clothes in one state and then having them arrive
at my house laundered and folded was actually pretty sweet. Laundry by mail
should be a thing.